You Don't Know What You Really Want: Why We Cling to LCD Soundsystem

I want to be the one who actually says something profound and groundbreaking about the new (and likely) final release from LCD Soundsystem, "This Is Happening." Recently I heard "All My Friends" and Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" played in succession on the radio, and I was startled at how downright natural the transition seemed. James Murphy's status as a musical visionary is undeniable and I esteem and scrutinize over any creative choice he makes. In a sense, I feel like every time I listen to music, I'm consciously wondering if this artist has/deserves a retrospective shout-out in "Losing My Edge."

At the same time, I feel like James Murphy is the sort of pudgy guy you're too embarrassed to admit you have a huge crush on. The "This Is Happening" artwork is kind of like an awkward version of a Justin Timberlake album cover. James Murphy has no idea what to make of his own relative "coolness." The record got a perfect score in Entertainment Weekly. Sasha Frere Jones is listening. I put on "This Is Happening" with very eager ears. I very much liked what I heard. "Dance Yrself Clean," is a great gradually building opening track. "Drunk Girls" is hilarious, stylistically surprising, and immediate. "All I Want," is mature, honest, painfully self-deprecating and has an incredible electronic hook. "I Can Change" makes you believe in love, again.

So yes, I really, really like this record, but I want it to do more for me. It is structurally identical to "Sound of Silver," (and even scored another 9.2 from Pitchfork). I want James Murphy to challenge me, I want LCD Soundsystem records to push me in entirely new directions. But perhaps I'm expecting him to do something he can't even do for himself. Murphy says, "LCD is a band about a band writing music about writing music" - is he in effect claiming himself an empty signifier? In "Dance Yrself Clean," moreover, Murphy declares, "Everybody's getting younger
It's the end of an era, it's true," is he tacitly suggesting that he's reached the saturation point of his creative expression? Or perhaps more disconcertingly, this sentiment seems precisely the same as the anxiety rampant in the group's first single, "Losing My Edge." James Murphy is as self-loathing as ever, but his popularity continues to soar.

Yet me and all the other liberal arts nerds with "borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties" persist in our reverence for this unabashedly flawed man. I hear a modicum of truth in "I Can Change," but then I'm right back at the stubborn posturing of "You Wanted A Hit," and realize that my hero worship is misguided. LCD Soundsystem will continue to speak to my youthful capriciousness and will affirm my obstinate views of "what's cool." Furthermore, there's something incredibly pointed/mildly dishonest about the hardly subtle appropriation of the Robert Fripp guitar coda from David Bowie's "Heroes," in "All I Want." I wish I could better suss out James Murphy's frank opinion on his own fame and his power to unleash such contemplative musings in individuals like me. Maybe I need to stop looking for answers in painfully ironical pop songs and solve these problems myself. But then again, "I don't know what I really want," so maybe I'm better off staying in the cocoon of Murphy's chronic indecision for as long as I can. Will we ever find that beat connection?

Dance Yrself Clean

All I Want

I Can Change

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